James Sutherland-Smith was born in Scotland in 1948, but has lived in Slovakia since 1989. He spent his working life as a teacher of English as a foreign language and as a lecturer in Cultural Studies. He has published eight collections of his own poetry, the latest being Small-Scale Observations from Shearsman. He has translated a number of Slovak and Serbian poets. At present he is working on a selection of poems by Eva Luka to be published by Seagull Books in 2025. He first published a sequence of poems in Stand in 1973.

James Sutherland-Smith's work featured in Stand Magazine comprises five contributions of poetry, two articles, and two reviews, over a period of 25 years. Also available are one review of James Sutherland-Smith's work and one translation by James Sutherland-Smith.